Don't Worry, Seek Imbalance

According to Marcus Buckingham, a former Gallup researcher and bestselling author, women today are more unhappy than they were 40 years ago. In his latest book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, Buckingham asserts that we were happier back when we had fewer career opportunities, got paid less, had fewer choices and weren’t a political force to be reckoned with. And he has survey results to back it up. Every year since 1972, the United States General Social Survey has polled men and women about their happiness, and every year women have reported being less happy.

Buckingham advises us to forget about finding balance. “You study the happiest and most successful women, and they deliberately pick out the moments in life that invigorate them and then tilt, target, imbalance their lives toward those moments,” he says. Imbalance as the path to happiness?

DailyWorth's Cristina Adams isn't very happy. As part of her therapeutic process, she's asking why: Not So Happy.